Operational Testing and Training for Space
March 5, 2025
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Col. Corey Klopstein:
All right, good morning everyone. Good to see you guys. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it. I’m Corey Klopstein. I’m the Space Force PEO for Operational Test and Training Infrastructure. Hopefully you guys are having a great conference, you know, having great discussions with everyone. I love coming to these. I love engaging with industry. Obviously, I also like to see old friends. Right, General Moore? Good to see you, sir. So I’m excited to moderate this panel this morning. We can have a lively discussion about what I consider to be the most exciting mission area for the Space Force Operational Test and Training Infrastructure. OTTI is emerging. It’s dynamic. It’s impactful. It’s one of the most essential elements to ensure that we as a Space Force learn how to control our domain. That we learn how to gain and maintain space superiority. So let me introduce our panelists. At the end, we’ve got Teo Williams, Defense Space Account Director, SAIC. In the middle, Dan McCullough, Senior Manager, Space Test Training Logistics for Lockheed Martin. And at the end here, Mike Rokaw, Executive Director, Phantom Works for Boeing, and also known Rocky fan. You can ask him about that afterwards. All right, so if you don’t mind, please bring up the slides. We’re going to hear from our panelists here in just a moment. Go to the next slide, please. But I wanted to give a quick refresher on the OTTI architecture we’re going to discuss. Most of you have seen this graphic that I’ve presented at various briefings and industry days and the conferences over the last 12 to 18 months. As I’ve said before, OTTI has three key areas. The digital environment, which includes things like a framework, common tools, standards and protocols, and emulations of red and blue assets. We need to complement our live environment with the most realistic digital environment that we have. Second, the physical environment, upper right, which includes more tactile assets that you would expect in a range. Things like on-orbit assets, HBA surrogates, threat surrogates or sensors, a range operation center, ground sensors to characterize on-orbit tests, EW emitters, and closed-loop environments, a cyber range to test and train defensive cyber operations, and hardware in the loop facilities. And then on the bottom, that’s our infrastructure. This is what ties things together. It ties our digital and physical environments. It includes facilities operating at multiple classification levels, data management tools, networks, to tie various OTTI nodes together. And all those enable us to pass live and virtual data back and forth. Our goal is to leverage existing infrastructure as much as possible, and then augment as needed to meet OTTI unique requirements. Now, as General Saltzman talked about the other day, space superiority is an indispensable prerequisite to the success of the Joint Force. We all know that. The Space Force is building our force to contest and win against adversaries, but not as quickly as we’d like. And I can tell you, I hear that often from leadership, and they’re trying to find and ask us to find creative ways to go as quickly as we can. We’re trying to push the boundaries to deliver capabilities as quickly as possible. In order for us to build the forces and present those forces to combatant commanders with confidence, Guardians require different and more advanced training to win against the threats that we face. And that’s why OTTI is such a fundamental aspect to our success for the Space Force. So, with that as a backdrop, let me turn to our panelists. You guys want to hear from them, not from me. Our first question, we’re going to start at the end there with Teo. From the perspective of a space industry leader, what are two opportunities that you see when you assess the OTTI architecture view?
Teoifolis Williams:
Yeah, so the first opportunity that I see is, you know, an opportunity for us to make sure that we’re synthesizing the live and digital data together in one environment for our range controllers to be able to provide, you know, good red and blue tracks and, you know, basically the picture that our operators need to perform their missions. So, you know, that’s an opportunity for us to get ahead there. With that said, bringing in live data is also ultimately important. You know, when I think about things like space domain awareness and how relevant that data is in a timely manner, that’s really important for operators to get the right site picture as to what’s going on in the threat landscape and environment, and then be able to, you know, modify their TTPs and adjust accordingly on the fly to respond to those threats.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Thanks. Dan?
Dan McCullough:
Yeah, there’s, as you saw from the charts, there is a lot of opportunity to partner here across industry. Clearly, you know, the two things that come to mind is you’re gonna need a lot of kits, sir. So if you’re, this is, you’re gonna need ground-based and space-based surrogates that actually represent the characteristics of the targets you’re utilizing. You’ll need an amazing amount of OPFOR that represents the threats that are out there. You need the instrumentation that can characterize and capture data in multiple phenomenologies, and then you need all of the C2 to tie all that together. So one thing is you need a lot of kit. The second thing, and perhaps the biggest opportunity and perhaps the best bang for the buck for Starcom is industry helping you to test and train in closed-loop environments. What I mean by that is, you know, especially when the work you have to do is repeatable and requires, you know, program protection. So what I mean by closed-loop environments, I mean conducting simulations where the outcome of the simulation doesn’t exceed the boundaries that you’ve set up. So a couple of examples there. So you can, using, you know, real RF hardware and software, you can radiate into a dummy load. You can, for rendezvous and proximity operations training, you know, utilizing real or simulated spacecraft, you know, having commands sent from actual real operation centers to a hardware-in-the-loop test stand. So that’s another big one. And then lastly is digital twins. Having the opportunity, or really not digital twins, but more having the opportunity for a Guardian to walk into their training room and not know the difference between the simulation that they’re using and the real world. So there’s a lot of opportunity from a system engineering, from a hardware and a software perspective here. Thanks.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Mike?
Mike Rokaw:
Thanks. I think two things that I think of is realism. And when you get into the realism, then you find the gaps in the seams of where the training is and it doesn’t matter how much technology you have. It’s the realization of an anomaly on a satellite. And since you said Rocky, I’m gonna actually give a quote. I think it was Rocky that said, “Time is an undefeated champion.” And I think all of us that have been out on the ops floor knows that you think you have a lot more time than you do, but just walking to the room, getting the data to the room to solve the anomaly, first thing you know, you’re an hour into it. And we don’t have those timelines in a war in space. So going through the easy mechanisms that we forget so much adds that realism that we won’t know. Things like, is the printer working, right? Are the screens working? By exercising our Guardians to do that, they understand the timelines and they know how to get the data to make the actionable decisions to save satellites and to give mission to the people that are on the ground, air and space.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Yeah, I think that’s a good point. Sometimes when you get into the exercises and training events, you realize that the limb facts may be more simplistic than you even anticipated. But I appreciate you bringing up that time’s an undefeated champion. I’m a visible specimen for that one. All right, so next question. What are the two challenges that you see in the Space Force’s approach to OTT? Dan, let’s start with you.
Dan McCullough:
So I think there are two main challenges, lots of challenges, but the two main that I see are really distilling and prioritizing Starcom requirements and then having a clear process for how all these capabilities are gonna be integrated together. So, you know, this is a massive system of systems effort. Individually, orbital warfare, electromagnetic spectrum operations and cyber warfare, training and tests are really in their infancies. So it’s a pretty big wicked problem to be able to bring all these capabilities together and integrate them. So I think one of the things that we need in industry is really an understanding of how we think we’re gonna integrate these. Is this something where the government integrates? Is it a place where industry integrates? And obviously there are quite a few folks in this audience who are really good at system integration. But I think this is a place where we could definitely collaborate to get to a good solution. And maybe there’s multiple solutions to this one. On the requirements side, the program office, actually, and Starcom has really been thoughtful about setting the vision for level one, level two, the strategic level requirements. And I think the program office has been very thoughtful on setting up these minimum viable product capabilities, not only just to get basic capability out to the testers and trainers, but to begin sussing out what those level three and four, the system of systems and system requirements are. So continuing to work with Delta 11, Delta 12 to get more prioritization from the operators, the range operators, the aggressors, the testers, I think would be really helpful. On the digital side, I think you would help us help you if you could give us some idea of what your requirements are for digital twins. I would love to go out and hand you a monolithic digital twin that represents the characteristics of every subsystem for every satellite out there and all its behaviors. But the truth of the matter is that’s probably a massive effort and the compute power required probably is unaffordable. So number one, I would suggest that we at least have some requirements from the OEMs, suppose, just to even have a digital twin requirement. And then having some insight from you on how the digital twins plan to be used, what the requirements should be, so that we can tailor what we provide to you, I think be really helpful. And then the last thing is I would recommend putting in a requirement for composability. That’s probably a discussion for another day.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
No, that’s fair. Got to get some action items from Dan. Let me write that down. Digital twin requirements. Now we’re definitely tracking and working close with industry to try to make sure that we define those standards and get those out to you as quick as possible. ‘Cause we know that you want to deliver and we know that you guys want to partner with us. Let me talk on requirements just really quick. I do think that we’ve set up a really interesting construct in a couple of different areas. First, an integrated program office where we got STARCOM and SSC personnel in our program office. And that’s to try to make sure that we’re integrating the user perspective and the operator perspective with the program managers and those who are trying to acquire the capabilities and we’re working alongside each other. So if you see anyone from STARCOM walking around with this badge, it has a blue border. Those are people that are in the program office that work with us on a day-to-day basis. The second thing is we’ve got a board of directors that have representatives from all of our key areas and our key stakeholders to include Spock, Space Force TE, Air Force TE, our requirements team, our S6. And so we try to make sure that we meet at least quarterly to ensure that the prioritization that we’re setting is prioritization that all the stakeholders agree to and we’re executing. Because as you can see, there are a lot of requirements that we have out there and there are a lot of needs that we have across the Space Force and prioritizing, like you said, Dan, is gonna be really important. So we’re trying to make sure that we’re doing that on a leadership level. Coming back to the question though, the two challenges that we got. Teo, I was gonna go to you to get your input on that.
Teoifolis Williams:
Sure. Yeah, so, you know, Dan talked about that. This is a problem that requires a lot of kit, right? So there’s a lot of sensors, there’s a lot of shooters, there’s a lot of range equipment. There’s a lot of things that build out this architecture. You know, but with that comes a big data problem as well. So being able to ingest that data, provide it to the right people in the right way, across the right classification boundaries for both, you know, TSSCI, SAP, international partnerships, joint, you know, and in a way that’s digestible for the people that need to get that data. So this is a huge issue that we have to deal with when building out this infrastructure. And with that, you know, comes the, you know, not only getting the data into the system, but, you know, what do you do with it then, right? So applying some AI and ML technology, so that our operators can quickly sense, make sense and act on the data and have something that’s useful for them to perform their missions.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Yes, I agree. And Cade Ewert’s out here probably somewhere. He’s got that big task for us to build out the infrastructure, make sure we’re managing the data the right way. Mike.
Mike Rokaw:
I would say that grandiose equals bad. Get something out there fast equals good, right? Get the training systems out to the operators as fast as possible, so you can get that feedback, so the acquirers can turn the crank. Get onto monthly cycles of upgrades, and then hold people accountable to those monthly cycles to get it done. I think when we start into the pontification realms of, hey, we can make this massive system, next thing you know, by the time we deliver the OTTI system, it’s 2032 and the war has already ended, and we’re all crawling out of our holes to get on our AHF ESS terminals to see if we’re alive.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Yeah, I agree with that. We take that principle to heart, and those objectives to heart, to try to deliver things as quickly as possible. I can tell you we’re leveraging over 50 contracts, probably more now. I haven’t asked the team to go back and actually give me the count, but we’re going to all agencies, mission partners, different contract vehicles that we can leverage to get capabilities out as fast as possible, and we agree that trying to build things quickly and build upon that, leverage existing capabilities like we’re doing on the digital environment to build a low to medium fidelity distributed training capability, we’re trying to make sure that we’re doing that. So Dan, you talked about integration when you were answering the last question, so I’m gonna go to two other panelists from an integration standpoint. Mike, what challenges do you see with integrating capabilities developed by multiple entities, a lot of people that are in this room, potentially online, trying to bring that into one architecture?
Mike Rokaw:
Yeah, so you gotta understand all of us industry FFRDC folks, we’re in it for the money and the mission, and you have to understand how we think so you can set up contracts so we can be successful. Consortiums, I don’t think work. I think IDIQs are the best way where you could throw out, you have a pool of people and you throw out task orders. One of the things that was experimented was if you have a team of contractors, you have a shared award fee where they grade each other. That doesn’t work either, because most industry companies and others will wanna win the big prize, and they’ll sacrifice short term so they can get their big program in there. So setting up contracts right, and then reinforcing appropriate behavior are important. And then the last thing too is sometimes FFRDCs become competitors to industry, and they are now actually building things, and then they have to transition that. Having a good transition plan where you have, you understand how it’s tested, you understand the procedures to transition to operations, that’s a very important part that we can’t forget. So I think those are a couple of the hurdles that we have to come over to make successful mission from an industry FFRDC standpoint.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
No, that’s a good point, and the first point that you talked about is something that we on the government side have to remember that as we’re working with industry, there is a profit aspect to what you guys are doing, and we’ve gotta make sure that we’re being reasonable on our side, and you guys are being reasonable on your side, and we’re working together to make sure that we’re coming to a common solution that works for both entities.
Mike Rokaw:
Yeah, and if I could throw in, don’t be afraid to tell us when we’re screwing up and what your hard points are. No one’s gonna protest ’cause we had a conversation. I think when I was a young captain, I was running the ground system for Advanced EHF, and Jerry Fasano, who worked for Lockheed Martin, was my ground person, and he said, “Look, if I get a 95% award fee, I get fired. “So if we’re ever doing anything wrong, “you stand up in the middle of a meeting “and you start counting backwards from 100, “and that will make us change.” So he taught me the tricks to get what you need from industry, and then, parallel to that, we highlighted what’s important for the mission to them. So have that open dialogue.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Well, I can tell you that the OTTI team will not be shy in providing feedback to make sure that we’re delivering on our commitments, both on our side and with the partners that we’re working with to deliver capabilities. So now, Teo, to you, what do you see as the integration challenges with this architecture?
Teoifolis Williams:
Sure, yeah, so going back to what you said about setting up contracts, along with that is protecting proprietary data. So a lot of companies are building their systems and they have their IP built within that. Bringing their IP into an environment that they’re comfortable with is an important thing to get after and make sure that the program is set up in a way that protects those companies and they don’t have to worry about losing revenue because someone else got their IP within the system. So having the right access controls and things like that built in, that’s gonna be a key component. And another thing I’d like to point out is some of the interoperability issues between dealing with new systems and legacy systems. Bringing in legacy systems, they have their own ICDs established. We gotta make sure that everyone’s operating to the same beat, right, and making sure that all those systems can come in in one fashion. And that’s a tough thing to do when you’re dealing with the number of assets that we have in the Space Force. So those are two things that I see as big challenges.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Go ahead, Dan.
Dan McCullough:
Just a couple of things, sir. So obviously it would be helpful for all of us to be operating on the same standards and interfaces. So having that as a common set would be, I think, something to help overcome some of the challenges. But from the digital side, it’s not easy already to develop all of these software models and mods of environments and bringing in everybody’s tools and apps in one. That’s already a difficult task. But doing that on the system high level with multiple security requirements across multiple common infrastructure and platforms, that’s a big challenge right there. I think that’s probably one of the more difficult ones.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
So I’d like to go back to Teo’s comment on proprietary data and pull the thread on that just a little bit because that is definitely something that I’m concerned about as the PEO for this architecture. And going forward, trying to make sure that we’re building the right environment so that industry can work together and partner together, but also ensure that your proprietary data is being protected. So have you seen, Teo, any examples of ways that different partners have worked together, but they’ve been able to protect the proprietary data that they needed to protect going into that arrangement?
Teoifolis Williams:
I have seen that. So there are data platforms out there that they implement the controls and standards that are required to allow them to operate in the same environment safely. The other part to that is the contractor that you choose to provide that environment, right? So if they don’t have a desire to go after that type of same IP or that type of, they don’t wanna build those systems, I think that’s important to address as well in how you award those contracts because you don’t want that bleed over.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Dan, did you have something?
Dan McCullough:
I was gonna say, one of the benefits of the IDIQs is, and I’ll use the Starfleet contract of PEO BMC3 as a great example, is that a lot of vendors operate out of that. And we’ve got an NDA between us so that we can share information on that contract for the purposes of that contract. So it’s a great software vehicle.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Mike?
Mike Rokaw:
Yeah, and you gotta design it right from the beginning. So you can protect other people’s IPs and just drag in the data that you need to make the overall mission happen. And when you design that in from the beginning, I think then everyone comes out as a winner. So think of that in the design practices when you start your coding.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Thanks. All right, so I know you guys have been working in the test and training area for, not just in your careers, but also in industry. So what are some Space Force test and training wins that you’ve observed, not just currently, but maybe in previous roles that you’ve had? Teo, I’ll start with you.
Teoifolis Williams:
Yeah, one of the ones I noticed recently was what you guys did in Space Force with Space Flag 25-1. And I wrote down some numbers because I thought they were pretty interesting. You know, and the amount of people that actually participated in that. There was some joint and coalition forces involved as well. But, you know, 56 total squadrons, 11 Deltas, 85 planners, 111 ops crew members, and almost 400 participants participated in Space Flag 25-1. And not only that, they were able to put together a digital environment for everyone to be able to seamlessly communicate and understand what each other’s doing and communicate efficiently to perform a large-scale exercise. I mean, that thing was pretty big, maxed out a lot of spaces out there at Schriever. And I think that was a really good win for the Space Force last year. Biggest Space Flag in history, actually.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
No, that’s awesome. Great example. Just wanna make sure that I point out Del-1, Del-11, 392nd, Nagan, Nakatani, awesome partners that we’ve been working with. Scott Peoples, our ML, and Nagan, working really close together to take what you were just talking about, Teo, that they’re using for Space Flag, and build upon that so that we can have, you know, a larger, more representative digital environment, but get it out as quickly as possible. And we are trying to push the boundaries from an exercise standpoint to see what’s in the realm of the possible, and what STARCOM is doing, and how they’ve been creative in trying to figure out, you know, different ways to address how we can train. Has been very impressive. Dan, do you have anything?
Dan McCullough:
Yeah, I’d really like to, along those lines, I’d like to commend STARCOM for the flashpoint exercises that they’ve been putting together. You know, this is a place where all of the Deltas can get together and do some crawl, walk, run discussions to help develop CONOPS and TTPs. So while I think they are probably in their infancy stages, I think it’s been a really great exercise. We had the opportunity to watch one, and I think it gave a lot of opportunity for us to, and industry to understand how to help better on that. A couple of other areas is, you know, we have, in working with the Delta 11 folks, we’ve just seen a can-do attitude from the range operators, from the aggressors, on just getting things done, what they need to get done to get their mission done. On the program office side, we’ve really been impressed with the disciplined rigor and system engineering approach that y’all have put into this and you’ve been really collaborative. So from an industry perspective, I see that as a win. And then with Lockheed Martin, with our partners here in Boeing Phantom Works and Northrop Grumman, we’re working to put together, I can’t say a ton at this level, but to put together a training environment where we merge operational C2 with tactical C2 systems and be able to help the Guardians do real training in a real environment. So those have been some wins, I think.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Yeah, I appreciate that. I’m glad you brought up Flashpoint. I think that’s something that Starcom has been pushing and in the early stages of it, I don’t know if we really understood potentially what the benefit would be, but then once we got Guardians into a room and got some Guardians read into some things that they hadn’t been tracking before at different classification levels, just based on the fact that they were in a different mission area, they started to really open their eyes to what was out there. And then just having the dialogue between each other, even though they weren’t working in a digital environment that was high end, a lot of this stuff was whiteboards and PowerPoint, but just getting them in the room and having them have those discussions together has been really valuable when it comes to us understanding the requirements, modifying the requirements and make sure that we’re updating that. And then the partnerships between SpOC, you know, Oxycontin, and STARCOM and getting SSC in there, I feel like has been really beneficial for us. So I appreciate that. Mike.
Mike Rokaw:
Yeah, I’d like to echo what everyone said, having these exercises and war games, especially for the younger folks, not the follically challenged like myself and you.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Distinguished. Distinguished, Mike.
Mike Rokaw:
Yeah, a much better word. Because usually when you’re in the lower levels, you’re thinking about just your weapon system or your satellite. When you get into a larger war game, then you can see how the different other squadrons can bring effects to the table. Perfect example is, if you have a vehicle that is Delta V limited and is in a geo orbit, you’re making decisions more on Delta V. But if we had a system that was in a heo orbit, maybe their revisit rate could lower the amount of requirements on a geo type vehicle. That’s what you learn in these space war gaming. And it’s the young Guardians that learn this that’ll be the commanders of the future that’ll learn those lessons to make the next systems better.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
And you see them working together, being creative and innovative and coming up with the solutions that you’re talking about. I mean, it’s really cool to watch. Okay, so you guys have worked with the Space Force, but also with some other services. So could you compare and contrast how you see OTTI developing within Space Force and test and training capabilities developed in other services or in other domains? What lessons do you see that you’ve seen there that we could apply to what we’re doing? Dan, I’ll start with you.
Dan McCullough:
Yeah, two things. So just by the nature of space operations, we really have a remotely operated con ops. So that, in my mind, really lends itself to a train like you fight sort of capability. Whereas other domains, they’ve got a human factors issue. There’s some in space too, but they’ve got to deal with that a bit more. So it’s theoretically the train like you fight should be easier for us from a digital perspective. Second thing I would point out is that for the space side of things, test and training has largely been a bit of an afterthought. Aside from an on orbit checkout, it’s not something that, for lots of reasons, that’s been forefront in development. Whereas other domains, they really emphasize integrating test and training in the development life cycle. One has a Navy example I’ll just bring up. They use this thing called realistic training environments to simulate realistic battle conditions. So they’ve got a combat trainer for the Aegis system that coordinates anti-air surface and submarine forces. And they can do training individually, they can do it across different organizations. So it’s a pretty handy tool. So it is very similar to, I think, the problem set that Space Force has for training.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Mike?
Mike Rokaw:
You know, if you look at what the Air Force does with Red Flag, if you look at what MDA does on how they actually shoot down missiles, maybe we should be thinking bigger on the points of let’s spend some money and the next time we do have an exercise, we actually launch a satellite, a CubeSat. You know, cost of launch on, say, a Rocket Lab or a Firefly, those can be in the small $10 million. Put a CubeSat up there, have them go through all the pains that it takes to get a satellite up there and to have experiments, you know, of what it is like. I remember there was a big BMC-3 exercise, I think it was about three or four years ago. I was at Virgin Orbit at the time, but the BMC-3 folks actually gave us money to have Cosmic Girl take off, go through the whole launch sequence. And we learned a lot about what we could do, what we couldn’t do, how do we get the data to the NSDC so they could do things. Put some actual meat behind it.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Thanks. Teo?
Teoifolis Williams:
Yeah, one thing I’d like to point out is, you know, it’s a little bit of a different problem set when you’re dealing with space. Mike pointed out, you know, maybe doing a launch of a CubeSat, I think that’s a great idea. You know, just until we get to that point where we can do those live type of events, you know, we’ve got to rely heavily on what’s done, you know, in a synthetic environment and leveraging things like digital twins. And of course the Air Force and other services have had a lot, you know, of that experience, along with, you know, a heavy cyber presence. So, you know, I think we can leverage a lot of what they’re already doing on those aspects and take that into what we’re, you know, marching down towards for the Space Force.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Yeah, I’d agree. I think, you know, one of the advantages of being in the position that I’ve been in over the last year plus is having the engagements with, you know, the other services and seeing how they approach test and training versus how we’ve approached test and training. And, you know, Dan, like you had said, that their mentality going in is very different than our mentality going in. And what they expect from an output standpoint is very different than what we’ve expected from an output standpoint in the past and where we need to go to in the future. And so that’s why, as we’re building out this architecture, we’ve got to make sure that we’re working together with the program offices and with the Guardians to bring the test and training, you know, aspects together and build it out the correct way. All right, so last question, we’ll go to closing comments. Dan, you talked about, or Teo, you talked about the flag exercises earlier and how important those and the STAR series of events that we’ve had have been for the Space Force and building out our training capabilities. How do you see industry influencing what we think are these cornerstones to SPAFORGeneration, Teo?
Teoifolis Williams:
Sure. So yeah, I mean, you know, obviously the main touch point is to what, you know, SPAFORGEN and industry, where they intersect is more in that ready phase where we’re getting our Guardians ready to deploy out to the field and, you know, and be ready to go out and operate in theater and do their missions either from, you know, from home or in a deployed environment. And so, you know, for me, industry needs to make sure that we’re marching down the road of providing realistic LBC, you know, capabilities for them to actually operate and be ready to go when they go out the door. You know, and I think that, you know, once again, you know, leveraging what’s on the live environment and the, you know, simulated environment, it’s gonna be really important for them because you want a realistic, you know, threat environment. It’s a dynamic environment that we’re working in. And so they’ve got to be able to be ready when the time comes and we’re marching towards a really short deadline here. So that’s really important.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Dan?
Dan McCullough:
So I just say, you know, please continue inviting us to participate and collaborate with you in these types of exercises. So we can help, we can really understand the challenges you face. This helps us inspire solutions. It helps us tailor our kit and helps us to invest where you need investment. So this sort of illumination and insight is really valuable for industry.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Yeah, I appreciate that input. And I feel like that’s one thing that Starcom has been, you know, they see the advantage to that. And so they’re trying to find opportunities to be able to bring industry and FFRDCs and URCs in to see Flashpoint, potentially see Space Flag. So, you know, they can, you know, potentially get some ideas from what they’re seeing, you know, happening in the events. Mike?
Mike Rokaw:
Yeah, absolutely agree. I think inviting industry into these, these type of SPAFORGEN type of things, we can see how the operators are thinking, and then we can innovate on what the touch points they’re learning and the bottlenecks that they’re facing. So we could do quick turns on software to make sure that doesn’t happen again, ’cause it is really about eliminating bottlenecks to make the mission happen. So I think, I remember every anomaly I troubleshoot, troubleshot on satellites, there was always an industry partner next to me in that satellite engineering handbook saying, “You can send this command, or you can send that command.” But we never wanna be in a situation where we’re in the real world and we haven’t trained for it. There’s no worse call than getting a call from your counterpart in ops saying, “I can’t find the satellite.”
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Yeah. Good point. Okay, thank you guys. Appreciate it. Appreciate you answering the questions. Let’s go to closing comments. Dan, I’ll start with you.
Dan McCullough:
So I’d say, sir, there’s a really a lot of good work being done here. So I think that everyone, I think, understands the urgency here, and I think we’re all trying to collaborate together. We definitely recognize the challenges, and I think all of us are trying to really work hard to provide you thought, leadership, and dedicated partners with you in this OTTI effort. From a takeaway on the multi-level security is really, I think, one of the things, the bugaboos, that probably we’ll have to get after. It’s foundational here to the challenges, just given the state of space warfighting. So investments there, I think we need to get after common standards and interfaces, I think that’s key. And then just help us help you by incentivizing us in certain ways. So codify key requirements for an OEM SPO solicitations. As Mike was saying, match the contracting vehicles to the need and to the strengths of the vendor that has capabilities. And then if you are able to help communicate your budget ahead of time, I didn’t get a chance to talk about that much earlier, but that helps us be able to invest and plan as far as in advance as we can. Thanks for the opportunity.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Teo?
Teoifolis Williams:
Sure, yeah, thanks for the opportunity. This has been good, and all the conversations we’ve had leading up to this, and I think this has been a really good dialogue, and I hope that the audience got something out of it as well, as far as how industry can help, how the government can move fast. I think we’re already doing some of that. I think that we’re collaborating well. Look, this is a big problem that we’ve gotta solve. OTTI covers every single mission area. It covers battle management, command and control. Everything that we do in our day-to-day missions runs through this process and this infrastructure. So I just wanna make sure that everyone understands where we’re headed, and there’s a short timeline. And I appreciate the time to speak with everyone today.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Thanks. Mike?
Mike Rokaw:
Yeah, if I could use an analogy, I remember one of my previous commanders said, “You need to read “as many biographies as you can on leaders, “because it’ll short-circuit the time it takes “for you to be an effective leader.” If you think about it, in the ’30s, Dwight Eisenhower and Patton were war-gaming the European war. In 1932, the Naval War College had already fought the war in the Pacific and saw the need for aircraft carriers. OTTI is that shortcut where we can do all that training so all of our commanders and Guardians can know how the war will be fought before it will be fought. And when we think about training, don’t forget the little things. Have a fast-forward and a rewind capability on your trainers. There’s nothing worse than waiting five hours to see what the ASAT did. Thank you.
Col. Corey Klopstein:
Thanks, guys. Could you please bring up the slides one more time? Okay, so I wanted to make sure before I got out of here, I talked about this at Space Industry Days back in September, our intent to engage with industry at least on a quarterly basis. My team got very excited and said, “I’m gonna do more than quarterly, “and I’m gonna get out multiple RFIs and AOIs to industry “in the next three months,” which is what we’ve done, and I’m glad that we’re leaning forward to do that. This QR code will take you to our commercial solutions opening that we have out right now. There are three areas of interest on there that you see on the chart. The most recent one is to build out the digital capability that we talked about for the digital environment. There is also an RPP, which is the same as an RFP, via SPEC-OT for range-as-a-service capabilities that we have out right now, and I know that, you know, I’ve talked to many industry partners over the last couple days, and you guys are working to have some responses to that. So we look forward to collaborating with you to deliver capabilities as quickly as possible. We wanna make sure that we continue the dialogue with you this year and find creative ways to deliver those capabilities across the board in each of the three areas that I talked about, the digital environment, physical environment, and for infrastructure as we go forward in ’25 and ’26 and try to build this capability out and enhance Space Force generation going forward. As we talked about today, it’s a really difficult challenge that we have, and I’m reminded of it every day, but we got an awesome team that’s working on it, and we wanna make sure that we expand that team to you guys, to FFRDCs, to URxAcademia, because you’re gonna be able to bring the ideas and the creative ideas forward to help us solve this problem. Thanks for being here today, thanks for listening. A hand for our panelists, please. Good job, guys.